The Role of Psychology in Healthy and Successful Aging

This essay delves into the multifaceted concept of healthy and successful aging, defining aging as a process of change and highlighting the key factors involved. It emphasizes the importance of physical, psychological, and social factors. The essay focuses on psychological factors, detailing their components such as physical health, social support, financial stability, and stress management. It explores the effects of these factors on aging, emphasizing their role in enhancing quality of life, increasing resilience, and reducing depression. The essay concludes by reiterating the significance of these three primary factors in achieving positive aging, devoid of chronic illnesses and disorders. References from relevant academic journals and books support the discussion.

HEALTHY AND
SUCCESSFUL AGENING
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:

TABLE OF CONTENTS
• Introduction
• Successful ageing
• Psychological Factors
• Components of psychological factors
• Effects of psychological factors on ageing
• Conclusion
• References

INTRODUCTION
• Ageing is defined as the procedure or process of becoming old that is
associated with diverse changes that take place within the human body.
• There are different aspects that are involved in the process of
successful ageing or that is directly related with change that take place
within the human being. The factors included in successful ageing are
(Pruchno and Carr 2017):
1) Physical factors
2) Psychological factors
3) Social factors

SUCCESSFUL AGEING
• The factors that increase the life span of and help the individual to
attain healthy ageing are considered as the major aspect for successful
ageing in an individual.
• Successful ageing is defined as the process of simple living where the
individual is devoid of any chronic physical illnesses and have bear
high psychological, physical and social engagement (Garcia and Wong
2018).
• Successful ageing depends on all the three components namely social,
physical and psychological factors.

PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS
• Psychologically healthy ageing is defined as the condition where an
individual age with non-physical development.
• Different psychological changes are involved that increase or
enhances the intellectual and cognitive capacity of leading life in an
individual (Aldwin et al. 2017).
• In order to achieve successful ageing, it is very crucial that an
individual has a positive behavior towards life and the way they feel or
act motivate the individual to lead a healthy life.

COMPONENTS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL
FACTORS
• There are different components of psychological factors that are
considered to have a major contribution in achieving successful
ageing. The components are as follows (McKee and Schuz 2015):
1) Physical health
2) Social support
3) Financial stability and personal income
4) Cohesiveness and family dynamics
5) Variety of stress-management strategies

6) Developing meaning or purpose of life
7) Maintaining optimal standard of cognitive function
8) Self-justification towards negative aspect of life and their outcomes
9) Mastery of widowhood and bereavement and strategies adapted to
prevent from depression
10) Personal control

EFFECT OF PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTOR ON
AGEING
• Effective adaption of psychological factors will help an individual to
enhance their quality of life.
• If the individual bear a good psychological health, the possibility of them
adopting to any stressful situation increases and they can develop the
desire or need to change according to the situations and prepare
themselves to face their old phase of life with better mind-set (Beard et al.
2016).
• Effective psychological factors result in reduced proportion of depression
and increased proportion of resilience is considered as the most significant
factors that is directly related with the process of successful ageing.

CONCLUSION
• The complete process of ageing depends on three primary factors
namely physical, psychological and social factors.
• Physical, social and psychological factors helps an individual to adapt
different strategies that will help them to acquire positive ageing.
• The above mentioned factors are directly related to the process of
healthy ageing where the individual is devoid of any chronic illness or
disorder.

REFERENCES
• Aldwin, C.M., Igarashi, H., Gilmer, D.F. and Levenson, M.R., 2017. Health, illness, and optimal aging:
Biological and psychosocial perspectives. Springer Publishing Company.
• Anton, S.D., Woods, A.J., Ashizawa, T., Barb, D., Buford, T.W., Carter, C.S., Clark, D.J., Cohen, R.A.,
Corbett, D.B., Cruz-Almeida, Y. and Dotson, V., 2015. Successful aging: advancing the science of physical
independence in older adults. Ageing research reviews, 24, pp.304-327.
• Beard, J.R., Officer, A., de Carvalho, I.A., Sadana, R., Pot, A.M., Michel, J.P., Lloyd-Sherlock, P., Epping-
Jordan, J.E., Peeters, G.G., Mahanani, W.R. and Thiyagarajan, J.A., 2016. The World report on ageing and
health: a policy framework for healthy ageing. The Lancet, 387(10033), pp.2145-2154.
• Flicker, L., 2018. Successful or Healthy Ageing. Journal of the Indian Academy of Geriatrics, 14.
• Garcia, A. and Wong, P., 2018. Successful Aging.
• Healey, M.K. and Kahana, M.J., 2018. Age-related changes in the dynamics of memory encoding processes
provide a biomarker of successful aging. Manuscript Submitted for publication.
• McKee, K.J. and Schüz, B., 2015. Psychosocial factors in healthy ageing.
• Pruchno, R. and Carr, D., 2017. Successful aging 2.0: Resilience and beyond. The Journals of Gerontology:
Series B, 72(2), pp.201-203.
• Timonen, V., 2016. Beyond successful and active ageing: A theory of model ageing. Policy Press.